Various alarm clocks include a snooze feature that enables a person to return to sleep after an initial or primary alarm (that is, an alarm set to sound at a specified time of day, for example, 6:15 AM) has sounded and be awakened a predetermined amount of time after activation of the snooze time, typically nine minutes after such activation. In the case of most alarms with a snooze feature, if the person would like to sleep for a longer period than the preset snooze time, he or she must reset or reactivate the snooze feature each time the predetermined time has elapsed and the alarm sounds. For instance, if such an alarm clock has a predetermined snooze time of nine minutes, for the person to sleep 27 minutes beyond the sounding of the primary alarm, the person must first activate the snooze button after the primary alarm initially sounds and then be awakened twice (by the sounding of the alarm at 9 and 18 minutes) to reactivate the snooze feature.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,442,600, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses an improved snooze-timer device that provides an uninterrupted snooze time interval selected by the user. After sounding of the primary alarm, the snooze time interval can be selected by the user by repeatedly depressing a snooze button to increase the snooze time by a predetermined interval. For example, with a predetermined interval of five minutes, the user simply presses the snooze button six times after the initial or primary alarm sounds to program a snooze time of thirty uninterrupted minutes. The snooze time interval can be reset to zero during countdown thereof by pressing and holding the snooze button for two seconds. An alarm sounding after the countdown of the snooze time interval can be stopped by either pressing and holding the snooze button for two seconds or by turning the primary alarm on/off switch to the off state.
Although the snooze-timer device of U.S. Pat. No. 5,442,600 is a substantial improvement over the prior art, it remains very desirable to develop alarm devices incorporating improved features, and, particularly, improved snooze features.